UN Secretary-General champions GAVI’s life-saving mission

GAVI Alliance CEO Seth Berkley thanks UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for becoming a GAVI champion, at the Canadian summit on maternal, newborn and child health in Toronto.
GAVI/2014/Sinead Andersen

Toronto, Canada, 30 May 2014 - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has agreed to become a champion of the GAVI Alliance, supporting its mission to save children’s lives and protect people’s health by increasing access to immunisation.

He made the announcement during the high-level summit "Saving Every Woman, Every Child: Within Arm’s Reach," emphasising his commitment to women and children’s health globally.

“I am proud to support the GAVI Alliance,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “Immunisation continues to be an essential tool in moving us toward the UN Millennium Development Goals. An investment in immunisation is an investment in the health of all the world’s children, in our collective future. A successful replenishment of the GAVI Alliance is critical to the efforts of the Every Woman Every Child movement to improve the health of women and children around the world.”

Leadership supports children globally

An investment in immunisation is an investment in the health of all the world’s children, in our collective future.

UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon

The GAVI Alliance has called on donors to back ambitious plans to immunise an additional 300 million children against potentially fatal diseases between 2016 and 2020 and save a further five million to six million lives. This will require an additional investment of US$ 7.5 billion to support developing countries’ immunisation programmes, in addition to the US$ 2 billion already available to GAVI to ensure that Alliance-supported programmes are fully funded up to 2020.

“We are grateful to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for championing the cause of child immunisation at this critical juncture,” said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of the GAVI Alliance. “With his leadership, and the support of our donors, we have the opportunity to positively impact the lives of millions of children living in some of the most dire conditions in the world.”

Ban joins leaders from around the world in his public support for the GAVI Alliance. Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome and Ghanaian President John Mahama also recently announced their commitment to be champions for the GAVI Alliance. And a growing number of African leaders have endorsed the Immunise Africa 2020 declaration to prioritise sustainable immunisation programmes in their countries.